Nodes in The Star Wars Buttress

This narrow fin of rock is the lowest of several buttresses and the first encountered when entering the School of Rock area. It’s situated near the eastern boundary of the scree & talus flow. The upper ridge of the buttress can easily be rigged with anchors for a few solid top-roping routes.

To access the upper ridge, hike about 30 meters on ball-bearing scree, up along the western base of the buttress, until you come to a thread-like path that switches back toward the top. A short bit of 4th class climbing will put you there. Sturdy, natural cairns of angular boulders can be used as anchoring points, but make sure the stones are well situated; it doesn’t take much effort to tip some of these bad boys off into the abyss.

The following routes can all be anchored from a single point on the summit:

1. Death Star

2. X-Wing and Red Five Standing By

3. Jedi Mind Trick

1. Begin in the exit of a ravine on the lower east side of the Star Wars Buttress.

2. On solid holds, make your way to the base of a cracked boulder stacked about 11 meters above the belay stance.

3. After a few careful hand placements in the boulder cracks, traverse left and over to an inset foot ledge scratched along the base of a convex face beneath the anchors.

4. Ascending the face, seek jams and small holds hidden along a guiding vertical seam just above.

This one starts at the lower south-side base of the Star Wars Buttress, opposite from Death Star. It can be identified by the conspicuously large and slanted overhanging block situated ten meters above the deck. The climb is usually top-roped, but it’s gone free a couple of times. The crux section above the platform ledge can be tricky to protect and TCU’s are nice to have there. Otherwise a light rack of stoppers will serve nicely.

1. Begin with easy moves for five meters, up a low corner fissure to the top of a platform ledge.

2. Next comes the crux; five meters of face climbing upward and left, pulling on well-spaced blades and pockets, then reaching directly up for hidden buckets on the massive leaning block. (Or, bypass the block by moving right onto a leaning slab.)

3. From the slab, traverse left onto the big block and move upward for an easy six-meter scramble to a splitter that’s just beyond vertical.

4. Work the crack until winning onto a narrow ramp.

5. Edge left and upward, and scramble up to the summit. Boulders provide ample anchor foundations.

Variation: Red Five, Standing By (5.8+)

Here’s a deviation from X-Wing that takes a more direct and challenging line from the top of the leaning slab.

1. Instead of moving left to the slanted boulder, traverse right and ascend on steeper slabs.

2. Once level with the bottom of the big splitter on climber's left, edge over to the crack and finish as before.

This has the same starting position and belay stance as X-Wing.

1. The route immediately moves right, up a scrappy ramp and through heinous bushes, to a squatty dihedral under a roof. Just above eye-level, look to the joint where the roof meets the wall and locate a grippy, angled crack.

2. From here, assault the roof directly, or exploit the crack and use alternating underclings to lie-back your way diagonally around the upper left edge.

3. Next, embark on a delicate dance past tiny, rough scoops and finger grabs to where the wall leans slightly beyond vertical.

4. Find a suitably high placement for one hand, then commit-and-go by pulling down, while smearing with feet.

5. A blind reach to a perfect bucket hold hidden just out of view is the ticket past the final crux.